Echoes of Eden: Sefer Bereshit (Me'orei Ha'aish Fire and Flame: Insights Into the Weekly Torah Portion) (English and Hebrew Edition) Hardcover – January 1, 2011

I had the unique privilege of having Rabbi Kahn as my teacher. His classes became my favorite, and I awaited each of these books to come out! The brilliance of Rabbi Kahn is how he comes up with new modern and interesting theories while tying in common themes , commentaries and Jewish thought to bind everything together. The books are in English and Rabbi Kahn is an eloquent writer. Anyone with a beginner or expert background would highly benefit from these books. I have re told his Dvar Torahs many times over the years and even used "in search of a serpent" as a base for a Bat mitzvah parsha I helped write. Every Jewish household needs this collection! I'm honored to have met and learned with such a Gadol and am thankful to have these books to continue my Jewish learning.

Many rabbis have, in effect, abandoned Bible study to fundamentalist Christians. Very few of their books that ostensibly address the Torah actually do so. Instead, usually without disclosing the fact, the rabbis who composed these volumes and the rabbis who deliver synagogue sermons focus on the midrashic versions of the biblical tales and laws, rather than the Torah text. The rabbis treat these midrashim as the true Torah, as divine, as if, despite the Torah itself saying something entirely different or not addressing the issue at all, the midrash is the word of God delivered to Moses at Mount Sinai, amidst thunder and lightning. They seem to run from the Torah because they don't know how to deal with the difficult questions about the Bible, especially from people who identify conflicting statements, and from scholars who contend that the Bible is not a divine document but the product of different writers over an extended period of time.The midrashim, the plural of midrash, that they use as replacements are fascinating didactic imaginative expansions of the Bible composed by sages who, like novelists, delved into the behind the scene action that the Bible doesn't disclose. They offer listeners and readers imaginary parables to capture their short attention-span and teach them lessons in story form that they can easily understand and remember. The writers of midrash never meant their sermons to be taken literally, or that they should replace the study and understanding of the Torah. It is a supplement, a spice, a desert, not the main course. Midrash today appears in books labeled as such, as well as the Talmuds, many Bible commentaries, such as Rashi and Ramban, in mystical books such as the Zohar, and in rabbinical sermons. It is not unusual to hear a rabbi tell his congregation the "fact" that Abraham smashed his father's idols, even though this fascinating and instructive tale is not in the Torah or even hinted by it, without revealing the true origin of his story. The book by Rabbi Ari D. Kahn, Echoes of Eden, which Jews who delight in midrash will undoubtedly enjoy, is a good example.The author tells readers that he is following the methodology of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, although he doesn't describe the method. Rabbi Soloveitchik (1903-1993) focused on the writings of the rationalist Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) frequently in his talmudic lectures, but took the diametrically opposite approach when commenting on the Torah. He considered the mystical Moses Nachmanides (known as Ramban, 1194-1270) as the best Bible commentator (the underline is in the book The Rav Thinking Aloud by David Holzer). Holzer quotes Rabbi Soloveitchik: "In my opinion, the Ramban has contributed much more to the philosophy of religion, to the Jewish world formula" than Maimonides' book on philosophy, Guide of the Perplexed. Maimonides, he continues curiously, was "over-educated and over trained.... The Ramban used more intuition than logic." Thus it is no surprise that Holzer also quotes Rabbi Soloveitchik as saying, the tales in the Talmud and Midrashim about miracles "are not parables, this actually happened." Following the Nachmanides-Soloveitchik method, Rabbi Kahn, for example, reveals the name of the biblical Noah's wife as being Naamah, although she is unnamed in Scripture, and relying on midrashim invents a fictional yarn, presented as biblically true, that she was a descendant of Cain, who murdered his brother Abel, that she was a demon-like temptress; and since all humans today are descendants of Noah and his wife, we are, he claims, in part, the progeny of the fratricidal Cain. This is a tale that would have made the 1998 Nobel Prize Winning Author for fictional literature, the author of Cain, Jose Saramago, proud. This story, it must be said, takes second place to the salacious adventure of Eve and the serpent, who Rabbi Kahn exposes, again relying on midrashim, as the devil, who is enchanted with Eve's beauty and is driven by passionate uncontrollable lust to seduce her. He waits until Adam, who Eve had married in a ceremony performed by God himself with angels as witnesses, has fallen asleep exhausted, after having had sexual intercourse with Eve, and is no threat. Eve, the rabbi discloses, was not interested in power, as many Bible readers suppose, she was "enticed by the aesthetics, by the beauty. Her reaction (to Satan's subtle seduction) is not greed for power but lust for beauty and experience," and so she succumbs, and the "object of his desire was won." Relying on midrashim and the mystical book Zohar, the rabbi reveals that she conceived from this adventure and her offspring was the aforementioned Cain. Thus, according to the rabbi, our blood stream not only flows with the merciless DNA of Cain, but of the devil himself.This methodology of teaching midrash as the true Bible not only uncovers thrilling and enchanting tales, but also theology that the midrash users claim to be biblical, but is not even hinted in the scriptural text, theology that changes radically from midrash to midrash from rabbi to rabbi, depending on the speaker or writer's inclinations, life experiences, and education. Thus, although the Bible describes the consequences of misdeeds, of not following the biblical way, as a poor and unsuccessful life, a purely practical description of consequences, the midrash gushes into what is frequently Oscar Wildean, mystical, other-worldly, amorphous, notions of scaring souls, loss of salvation, other-worldly punishments, Christian teachings of original sin, and brooding never-ending anguish over even minor mistakes. Thus, for example, Rabbi Kahn writes: When Adam and Eve "sin, they lose the clothing of salvation. The result is the loss of divine protection and the sense of proximity and intimacy with God, the feeling of a child wrapped in the embrace of a loving mother. It is then that they feel naked. Their response is to cover their bodies; apparently (focusing only on the physical), they were oblivious to the damage done to their souls. In place of the `clothing of salvation' that had dissipated, they cover themselves." In sum, those who like the preaching of midrash will enjoy this book, but those who seek to understand the Torah won't find it here, in the teachings of Nachmanides and Rabbi Soloveitchik, or in the sermons of all-to-many pulpit rabbis.

Thanks

Prime motivations to read and review this book were to ascertain whether it contained useful information and to determine if it was worthy of recommending to fellow Christians. The answer to the first is "Yes" and to the second, "Yes, with some qualifications". It may seem incongruous for a Christian to read and study this book which is clearly written by an `insider' for fellow `insiders' (I will explain later) and to give it a positive review but, when it is remembered that Jesus was, as some commentators say, a Jew's Jew, the incongruity dissolves. In his own words, he said: "Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished." (Matthew 5:17-18 (ASV). It is acknowledged that the present day Torah differs from the written word as Jesus knew it in that it contains oral tradition reduced to writing as well as later commentaries but that does not excuse our duty to increase our knowledge so as to be better able to discern truth. This book and others like it should help in that endeavor. It may be construed as a reckless overstatement by Jews and Christians alike but there is little difference in our theologies, only in the interpretation and application of the lessons of the Torah. Should fellow Christians read this book? Yes, but my answer is qualified for several reasons. First, it is not an easy read. It is obviously the assembly of a series of essays or lectures with little attempt to integrate them into a more readable flow. Each `chapter' can stand on its own but the transition from one to the next makes the reader stumble over repetitious material and seemingly inconsistent comments. I almost sensed that some sections were separate drafts of the same material. This was especially true when the discussion of Joseph's relations with his brothers was discussed. Some repetition is expected, after all the title "Echoes of Eden" implies the reverberation of material and is part and parcel of the presentation. Notwithstanding the above criticism, Kahn's identification of the repetitive use of common symbols and concepts throughout this book of Genesis is enlightening because it is something easy to overlook when reading the Torah in isolation. An example is `clothing' as, perhaps, a metaphor for a relationship with God - in Eden it was a mark of shame, for Jacob it was a disguise to deceive Isaac as to punctuate Esau's rejection of his birthright and obligations to God, for Joseph, his coat of many colors was a badge delineating his favored status. (I am curious to see how the regalia of the High Priest will be explained in future volumes of this work.) Man seems to use clothing to either mask themselves from God or to distinguish their status and relationship with God. Another repetitive theme that Kahn identified is `conflict'. He selects pairs of antagonists to illustrate complex relationships caused by - well, I'm not sure because Kahn fails to positively identify the root cause of the conflicts. He points to, among others, the conflict between Cain and Abel, between Isaac and Ishmael, between Jacob and Esau, between Rachel and Leah, between Joseph and his brothers but he implies that it might be simplistic to say that it is evil versus good. Could it be that clothing gives a clue? It can be argued that both parties of all these conflicts acknowledge and recognize God but only one side both recognizes and accepts God's sovereignty; only one reveals himself or herself in naked surrender to God. Rabbi Kahn provides much fodder of this nature but it is up to the readers to chew and digest his material.Another gentle criticism: Rabbi Kahn (and the editors?) overdo the use of footnotes. Whether this was to preserve the original text or to de-emphasize parenthetical thoughts is open to conjecture. Footnotes are like coughs during a symphony; they should be repressed. In my opinion, footnotes should not be used except to properly cite sources or to acknowledge contrary opinions; otherwise they are disruptive. Kahn does explain his motivation in the preface but my criticism stands.As to the citing of sources, the author is seriously remiss, at least in the eyes of a gentile or one not well versed in the Torah and its many parts. Many of the references are to sources that may be easily recognized as coming from other parts of the Torah, from the Midrash or Talmud, or from other authoritative commentaries but not so easily recognized by those not so well versed. A case in point is in the foreword when the General Editor makes reference to Ramban and his commentary without further elucidation. A simple search of Wikipedia leads to Nachmanides but offers no clue as to the authoritativeness of his commentary. A bibliography or similar guide would be helpful to us outsiders.I believe the inclusion of quoted material in its original Hebrew script is theologically motivated so I will not comment any further on that subject. The transliterate spelling of names that differ from those used in modern translation of the Jewish Bible (which we are wont to call "The Old Testament") also causes some difficulty but I had no trouble recognizing Hava as Eve, Hevel as Able, Kayn as Cain and so forth from the context but some readers might become confused. I urge forbearance.Turning to more substantive although, hopefully, constructive criticism I draw attention to unwarranted anti-Christian rhetoric that also demonstrates a lapse of logic. On page 98, after a discussion of the near or actual sacrifice of Isaac/Yitzhak, Kahn asserts, therefore, that the concept of the resurrection of the dead was, after all, of Jewish origin and that the idea was "hijacked" by the Christians and forgotten by the Jews. The use of the pejorative "hijacked" is unfortunate and the logic faulty. Absent mind sucking technology of which I am unfamiliar, an idea cannot be hijacked. Larceny is commonly defined as the permanent conversion of the custody of property from its rightful owner. It would have been more accurate to credit Christianity with keeping alive Torah's concept of resurrection while Judaism abandoned and discredited it.In another essay, Kahn draws attention to a quality of Abraham/Avraham's character often overlooked: love. We more often emphasize Abraham's obedience, military prowess, et al, but overlook his loving nature to both God and fellow man. While this is a positive and welcome contribution to our understanding of the Torah's message by Rabbi Kahn, he fails to note that it is also a concept, like resurrection of the dead, that has its origin in the Torah but has been virtually downplayed (not discredited) by Judaism but advanced by Christianity. Yes, resurrection is a major tenet of Christianity but more in a prophetic sense while love is a more basic Christian tenet in the here and now.On page 187, Kahn touches what may be the seminal message of Torah but fails to develop it completely. The subject was "the theological ramification of Jacob/Yaakov's vision [the movement of Angels up and down the ladder to heaven] and to the question of sacred ground". While Kahn's analysis may be on the mark, he elected to spend more words of conjecture on whether the serpent walked upright before it seduced Eve, if Noah's wife was a descendent of Cain and other trivia than to this important topic. Our God - the God of the Jews and Christians alike -- goaded the Israelites to avoid the worship of both place and things but that message of the Torah failed to stick. The exile to Egypt failed to export their and our worship of the true God to that nation, the Babylonian exile was partially successful in that it proved that the Torah could survive and thrive beyond the Promised Land but it took the Roman diaspora to drive that message home. Even that was only partially successful in that Jews continued to draw together rather than to evangelize. It did, however, provide the brooders in which our mutual faith could incubate. The lamp was lit in Jerusalem but it took the Christians to carry it into the darkness.The veneration of the Torah as an object and of Israel as a place are basic tenets of Judaism and this may not be the proper forum to draw parallels to idolatry but deserves a passing comment. A distinction might be drawn between holding something or someplace sacred and the worship of that thing or place but it may be a distinction without a difference. At any rate, it is a slippery slope. Kahn gets it right on page 187 et seq.Do I recommend this book to Christians? Yes, but keep an open mind and pray that our Jewish brothers heed the spirit of Torah.